It seems utterly impossible that this child will be starting preschool in just over 2 weeks. Admittedly, it is one year earlier than we had planned for him, but still.
I have a new post up in the Every Little Bottom category. It is a post that contains a video of me cavorting through the Expo Hall at BlogHer. You know you want to see it. CLICK HERE.
One of my responsibilities as a Blog Ambassador for the Huggies Every Little Bottom program was to “man the booth” for a few hours each day of the BlogHer 2010 conference in New York City. For a tiny little glimpse of the expo hall – the area where this booth was located – I dutifully filmed this video to show you.
My POV of 1/8 of BlogHer10 Expo Hall from Kim Prince on Vimeo.
Well, this was more about inadvertent closeups of my mouth and bad videography than a great pan over the capitalist overkill of the expo hall, as I intended. However, if you noticed how many people there were and how noisy it was, maybe you get the idea. It was huge.
And at most of the booths, visitors were gifted with a sample of the product, a flyer, a chance to win something, or a photograph with a celebrity such as Bruce Jenner, a Real Housewife, or Marmaduke.
The one and only. And Marmaduke.
At our booth, though, people who were slow enough to be caught in conversation with us, hawkers very much like the salespeople at kiosks in the middle of the mall with their hand lotion, their perfume, or their cell phone plans, were treated to a lighting-fast charity pitch that went something like this:
“Hi! This is the Every Little Bottom booth! Yes we are giving away diapers but not here! No, Huggies is giving away 2 million 22 million diapers over the next year to families who have trouble affording them. Did you know that 1 in 3 American moms have had trouble affording enough diapers for their babies…?”
Reactions varied. Many people had already heard of ELB or even Help a Mother Out, which was awesome. Others were funny “Oh, we don’t need diapers anymore, hurray!” and then shocked when they learned why we were there. They were then handed a business card that instructed them to post an update on Twitter, Facebook, or Foursquare (more on that later) about what they had learned. I got business cards from as many people as possible (which is why I asked for a business card scanner for my birthday, in case any of you want to email Stewart lest he forget to get me a present). And there was one woman who jumped for joy and said she was dying to hold a diaper collection event in her town.
It was pretty gratifying to spend time in real life with the people I have only met on conference calls or Twitter. The ambassador team is made up of genuine, hearty, quirky women, and the PR team from Ogilvy, Huggies, and Kimberly Clark are sharp tacks with a great collective sense of humor. I suppose that was obvious, considering the graphic of a baby’s butt above our heads the entire time.
The real message to me was that we were spreading the message. In a gigantic expo hall filled with sausage, mugs, tote bags, and potato heads, we had nothing to give but our words, much like we give here on our blogs. Our words are the most powerful tools we have, and in-person is a medium we don’t get to exercise to the masses very often. At the ELB booth, we got to see the realization dawn on people’s faces when we told them our stories.
I don’t yet know any official measurements of the numbers of people we reached, or how many hits we got on social media apps during BlogHer, but I’ll tell you this much. It felt like we were Doing Good.
To find out how you can help, please visit Every Little Bottom and Help a Mother Out.
For titles and captions, visit the BlogHer10 set on Flickr.
I traveled to BlogHer as an ambassador for the Huggies Every Little Bottom program, and as a promoter of Uptake.com’s Travel Gems program. Here’s what I attended:
1. Social Luxe Lounge
2. Bumblebee Tuna demo with Scott Liebfried
3. People’s Party
4. Drinks in the lobby with the ELB team
5. BlogHer Breakfast – sat with Neil Kramer and that lady from 24 at Heart. And another lady.
6. 30 minutes of Change Agents panel, Friday AM. Am in brain crush love with @MaggieDammit.
7. ELB Booth in the Expo Hall – my first shift was with Lisa Truong, who started all of this for me.
8. Super secret bedroom party with @ilinap @morningsidemom and @corinafiore (once again best party at BlogHer)
9. Voices of the Year Keynote Panel
10. Voices of the Year Gala
11. Nintendo dinner at The Boathouse
12. Swanky After Hours Party at London Hotel
13. Breakfast with BFF from Syracuse – Dunkin donuts and strolling in Central Park.
14. Swag hunting in the suites with Julia Scott, the Bargain Babe, who incidentally is promoting MySavings.com/blogher2010
15. ELB Booth shift (partner was Heather Flett, a very kooky gal who looks so innocent…), where I ran into a BFF From Los Angeles who works in the film business and was promoting her company’s latest DVD for kids. Small world!!
16. Reflexology in the probiotics suite (LOVED)
17. Glamour and Games at the e.l.f. showroom in Manhattan (see photos)
18. UnWindHer dinner presented by Romy Schorr at a fancy restaurant down by the piers – long cab ride back made me a little carsick
19. CheeseburgHer Party
20. Short super secret bedroom party with the ladies from above, just to say goodbye.
21. Super secret pizza party. That’s where I fizzled out.
23. Brunch at Loews Hotel courtesy of Chevrolet and Loews and Fisher Price? I think? All because of dear Carol Cain, @nycitymama. It was fantastic.
24. Tromping around Times Square with BFF from Syracuse, lunch at Maison.
25. Escape from Manhattan nightmare courtesy of all Dominicans living there at the time.
26. Family party in Stamford, CT.
28. Sleep.
29. The end.
30. This post is another teaser. I am not done yet.
This was an original post for LA Moms Blog on July 22, 2008. Sadly, the SV Moms Group has shut ‘er down, so I’ll be posting my archives here every Friday.
While I don’t think it’s clinical, nor does it need medication, I believe I have an addiction to the internet. More specifically, I have an obsession with surfing blogs written by people who have way cooler or more dramatic lives than I. Also, I cannot stop checking my email or the comments sections of my blogs. Nor can I resist the endless links that lead me away from my intended path. I sit down to write a post, for which I will be paid a certain amount, and 30 minutes and a numb rear later, I am reading about the scientific names for weeds. (Curse you and your curious URL, University of Illinois!)
I finally realized this when my mental image of my one-year-old was him standing on the top of the step that is to the right of my computer. That is, I remember him standing there, making little cute toddler noises to try to get my attention as I type. This little snapshot of him is still with me: when I look over and give him the desired attention, long enough to say “just a minute, honey, Mommy has just one more thing to do,” he lights up with glee, his halo of wispy blond hair shiny and backlit by the lamps in the living room.
At that point I knew it was time to put him in daycare so I could get my work done. That sounds bad, but it’s actually good for everyone involved. Now I handle all of my internet business when the children are in daycare or after they go to bed. When they are home with me, I pay attention to them. The battle is cast aside, and I am theirs completely. Now I can start picturing my baby in my arms, not on the edge of my peripheral vision.
That hasn’t stopped me, however, from other obsessive behaviors. Some things just must be done on the internet, right? When I appeared on the CBS Evening News, I wanted to shout it to the rooftops (i.e. the web) but on that day my wireless router stopped working, my husband took my laptop to work, and my desktop was 30 feet away from the modem. Instead of dismantling the hulking mess and repositioning it across the house, I went to the library to check my email.
I’ve read posts and articles by a favorite blogger of mine who struggles with the same sort of addiction. The kind in which you can’t walk by your computer without poking the mouse to wake up the screen and see if you have new email, or refreshing your blog to see the new comments. “I’ll just read this one and I’ll go…” I think to myself, too many times daily to confess. This blogger actually committed to certain limited amounts of internet per day, an idea which I am considering, but I have to warm up to it.
The truth is that on the days I can’t access the web for even a half an hour at a time, I am much more productive in real life. I am cranky and pissed off at my internet provider, but that wears off when I survey the empty laundry baskets, the gleaming kitchen table, or the bills written and nestled in envelopes, ready to be mailed.
I get so much out of the internet. I believe it makes me a better parent. It certainly makes me a better friend and a much more resourceful and productive worker. But there’s a fine line between using it as a tool and it using me. I’d like to stay on the right side of that line. Having said that, I think I’ll check on the sleeping children and go fold some more laundry.
Kyle is really into science. He loves to watch the Weather Channel and to look up facts on the internet. This morning he drew a cross-section of a tornado, then made a spinning tornado/ball device with a paper plate and a bouncy ball. “This is what a tornado looks like” he said, holding up the piece of paper, “and this is what it looks like when it’s spinning.” Then he titled the plate so the ball would spin around.
There’s a little tornado inside me, too.
For the past few months I have been running through our life nonstop. It’s been wonderful – lots of family time, moving to this new neighborhood and discovering things together, traveling together, etc. It doesn’t ever stop: this weekend we’ll go camping in Ventura, then Labor Day weekend we’ll go Camping With the Lesbians again (hooray!). All of this activity, though, doesn’t allow me much time to contemplate the nagging worries that pop up in my brain when I’m driving alone, or right before I fall asleep at night.
One of my girlfriends confessed that she sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night and worries about the Big Things. She can’t go back to sleep. It’s as if the middle of the night is the only time free for such preoccupation. Certainly a busy mother of two does not have the opportunity to dwell on the unknowns of the near future during the hustle and bustle of a regular day. What would that even look like? I picture myself sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in my hands, staring off into space, a pinched “V” between my brows. The lonely act of worrying.
In fact, I sat down here at my desk just now to Get My Shit Together. My plan was to Organize, List, and Come Up With a Strategy. But guess what? I can’t do that without typing, and so I remembered this blog and how wonderful it always feels to work my shit out right here.
I’ve taken a long time to get to the point, I know. Perhaps I’ll go back and edit this post to give you the goods quicker. For now I’ll just bold it:
I’m considering becoming a Stay At Home Mom.
Now those of you who just come here because you’re intrigued by the title, or to look at the pictures, have scrolled down and blessedly missed all of the blah-blah above. The point is, my kids are going to school. Not someday, as I had always feared, but next month. In TWO WEEKS, to be exact. Kyle starts Kindergarten, and I am terrified.
What if he gets put in the early bird class?
What if kids pick on him?
What if he picks on other kids?
What if he gets sick?
How will he get to catechism?
How will he ever get to play extra curricular sports?
Who will do his homework with him?
Where will he go on days off and the new ridiculous week-long Thanksgiving holiday?
How will I pay for full-time aftercare?
What about when BOTH kids are in school?
My day job is not paying me enough to justify all that day care for both kids. I have arranged to work part time to pick up Kyle. But then there’s all these short days and local holidays, etc. There’s events and shows and fundraisers. I never, ever, EVER thought I’d say this, but I want to be involved. I want to be there for him. I want to be an active parent, at home with my kids.
There. I said it. I breathe a huge sigh of relief as I put that out into the universe. Now begins the arduous, scary, thrilling task of making this change possible. We can’t support our lifestyle without my income, you see, so either the lifestyle goes, or I keep up the income on a schedule that allows me to be here for my children when they are not in school.
My life has always been one way. Now it needs to be the other way. Unfortunately, I can’t just flip a switch and make it happen. I have to work at it. Not only do I have to pinch pennies and/or hustle up the part-time work or the clients for my freelance writing career (hello possible clients, you may contact me via the email in the upper right corner), but I also have to shift my mentality. All those hours of being with my children after working full time for so long – that will be an adjustment. How easy or hard it will be I cannot tell. I pray for easy!
I was afraid to tell Stewart about this desire of mine to stop working out of the home and stay here with the kids. I thought he would laugh at me and say “You don’t really want to stay home with them!” After all, I love my career. I get impatient with the children. I shoo them out of the house in the morning, impatient for Stewart to take them off to day care so I can fit in social media and blogging time before I go to work. But as I carefully pointed out to him several times over the last few months while this idea was brewing in my head, I have been so much better with the kids, and they’ve been better with me. We’ve come a long way.
As I mentioned, we do depend on my salary, the loss of which I know concerns him. But as my salary has suffered from the economic downturn, it makes less and less sense to bank on that job. I have done what I can to drum up clients for that company, but either nobody’s buying or I’m going about it the wrong way, because I haven’t been successful at the sales effort.
I thought I’d have to “run the numbers” and do a presentation complete with a Power Point slide show to convince Stewart of my seriousness. Since I don’t have time for that, I brought it up last night, and all I had to do was weep a tiny little bit as I talked about my idea, and his face softened and he said “Of course I wouldn’t laugh at you, honey.” He thinks it’s a good idea, and that it would be good for our family.
And then he asked me to run the numbers.
I’ll do that. I’m sure I’ll come up short in the income category. But I’m putting my faith in the universe, and in myself, that I can fix that part. Maybe something amazing will happen. At the very least, my kids will be happy.
We say it’s crazy. We lament the waste, the pure commercial excess of it. We pretend we don’t even want it.
But secretly, and yes I’m including you, we love the swag.
The shiny new packaging. The unexpected bounty. The tubes and pots and bags and cellophane and ribbons and bows. And then the smoke clears and we think “How am I going to get this stuff home?”
So the truth is: I’m not. I just went through all of the free samples I was given at the BlogHer conference in New York. I lugged that load through the city, on the subway, on the train, and in 2 cars to my parents’ house. I took it because I knew my friends and family would be delighted, if not a little shocked, to choose what they’d like to keep from the stash.
My one big confession is that since I had to cleverly pack the swag, there are many items whose origins are unknown. I don’t know who gave me the delicious gardenia body mist. Or the ever-so-attractive brand new pack of crayons. In the end I suppose the brands are the ones who gave them away, so thank you, brands. If I like your product, I might mention it on Swag of the Day. If I don’t, and I think there is someone who will, I will do another Free Crap Giveaway.
In the meantime, I have a fortune in lip gloss (thanks, Ted!) hair products, snack chips, video games, makeup, toys, and lotion. Oh, and the ever-present laundry detergent.
And in case you were wondering, yes, the naked lady was back. More on that later.
Okay so that’s a bad play on a film title but it got your attention. I’m putting the final things into the ol’ bags right now for our trip to the east coast. If you are going to BlogHer 2010 and you’d like to come say hello to me, I’ll be manning the Huggies Every Little Bottom booth from 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM Friday and Saturday in the Expo Hall. Otherwise, I will be attending some panels, parties, the 5k on Broadway, and that comfy-look bed in my room in the Hilton! Find me!
photos by Gerald Bender
From Environmental Working Group:
“BABIES ARE BORN PRE-POLLUTED WITH 100′s OF TOXIC CHEMICALS.
OUR BROKEN TOXICS LAW IS FAILING THEM.
WE NEED YOUR HELP TO CHANGE THAT.
EWG tested the umbilical cord blood of 10 newborn babies and found nearly 300 chemicals, including BPA, fire retardants, lead, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and pesticides that were banned more than 30 years ago.
Speak up for change. Our kids deserve it.
Bills to overhaul federal toxic chemicals policies are now moving through Congress. They would require that all chemicals be proven safe for children before they can be sold. Lawmakers in Washington need to know that you want strong reforms for our broken toxics law.
Please sign this petition to demand that Congress take action to make chemicals in consumer products kid-safe.”
This message brought to you by Pure Natural Diva’s Bloggers United campaign against yucky chemicals. I’m all for chemicals that are not yucky, like the ones in Lipton Iced Tea mix that are tasty, but I’m also pretty sure that they are not exactly healthy, if you know what I’m saying. It’s just that I really don’t like the taste of real tea. Nor do I like rye bread or licorice.
But what was I saying? Oh yeah, chemicals. I recently watched the movie “Food, Inc.” and let me tell you, it had an incredibly powerful gross-out and creepy factor. Gross-out because of all the processing and factory work that goes into our food, and creepy because the movie makes the corporations who grow and make our food seem like evil Wizards of Oz behind the curtain, concerned only about the dollar and not at all worried about our health and safety.
Ugh.
So I’m helping to spread the word with Tania at Pure Natural Diva about getting behind the enforcement of the Safe Chemicals Act.
Have you asked for a stronger national chemicals policy? You should.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve got more important things to do with my time than research product safety. And I bet you do, too!! Like read to my kids, cook them healthy meals, work, exercise, and the list goes on (and on!).
Of course I spend the time necessary to make sure I buy only the safest products for my family. I’m just not happy about it. I mean, products that are on the shelves should be safe, right? Yet, headlines tell me more often than I’d like that they’re not.
Take a few seconds to sign the petition… today.
We need a stronger law!
Which is precisely why I’m joining forces with Pure Natural Diva, Bottles to Britches and Non Toxic Know How to support the nationwide effort to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act in Congress. This law was passed back in 1976 (remember The BeeGees?!) and hasn’t adequately protected public health since. It’s high time to strengthen our country’s toxic chemicals law – and right now there’s an opportunity to do exactly that. See, this Spring Senator Frank Lautenberg (NJ) introduced The Safe Chemicals Act.
I hope you’ll join me in asking our representatives in Congress to pass this bill. It’s incredibly important, and the time is now. The more of us who ask, the more likely they are to listen. So go ahead,
Tell Congress to put toxics on its “to do” list NOW
The plan is to make it crystal clear that we want an effective national chemicals policy that protects human health, especially our children who are most affected by toxic chemicals.
The way I see it, if we’re frustrated by the current system (check), we should work hard to change it!
QUICK & EASY – SIGN THIS PETITION TO CONGRESS
Numbers talk: 150,000 signatures is the goal. EWG will deliver this petition to key lawmakers on Capitol Hill to show them how BIG and PASSIONATE this Safe Chemicals movement has become. Can you help us reach our goal today? It’s easy to sign and share – and extremely important to our success.
The time is right now. There is a political window of opportunity to move the Safe Chemicals Act forward in 2010, but in the current political climate, windows close quickly and unpredictably. If we don’t give it our absolute all NOW, when the political momentum is there, we may lose this chance.
Sign it, share it . This issue is far too important to let Congress do nothing. We need your help – by signing and sharing the petition – to get the Safe Chemicals Act on the Congressional “to-do” list. Preferably at the top.
Bonus Points? This only takes a minute!
Use this link to send a letter to your Senator quickly and easily.
Thank you for taking time to be heard!
This was an original post for LA Moms Blog on July 13, 2008. Sadly, the SV Moms Group has shut ‘er down, so I’ll be posting my archives here every Friday.
I’m new around here, so I’m feeling like a bit of a joiner. I eagerly scour every email from the blogging community for ways I can jump into the fray and meet new people and make new connections. Also, I find it hard to say “no” to requests for help if I think I have the means to give someone a hand. Yesterday, these circumstances landed me in my living room at 8AM at the wrong end of a TV camera.
I say “the wrong end” because in my pre-mom career I was behind the camera as a TV producer. To me, that feels like the right end. Still, since I have all this experience, I thought I was prepared. I can give good soundbite, I know enough not to burp or chew on my lip or scratch my ears on camera. When the CBS producer contacted us with a need to interview somebody tomorrow! about women and retirement planning, or lack thereof, I stepped forward. I had less than 24 hours to prepare. It was a challenge!
The reporter and cameraman who showed up at 7AM spent two hours at my hastily cleaned house (clutter was thrown into a box and shoved into the garage, a vacuum was run through the visible floor space, and pants were put on the husband). They filmed my “normal morning routine” with my husband and two little boys, which included me helping them all get into the car, then kissing and waving goodbye. Anybody who works from home will know that this is fiction – I am usually still in pajamas, drinking coffee and checking my email as the door slams shut behind the boys and their father on their way to daycare, embracing the sudden quiet and the hours of freedom that stretch before me.
Then the crew filmed me blogging. I’ve read other bloggers’ posts about such a thing. I’ve seen how they sat cutely at their laptops, crafting an intriguing-looking post and showing off their well-designed mastheads. I, of course, had nothing prepared, so I sat there with stage fright, not knowing what to type. Mostly, I kept poking my cursor at my masthead, as if to say “go to my website which has nothing to do with this news story whatsoever!” Eventually, I had the bright idea to re-post an earlier entry that included a cute picture of the baby, which of course elicited confused comments from my family, irate that I dared to repeat myself.
After that, they taped me sitting on my couch looking through financial statements and pretending to look perplexed. Okay, I wasn’t pretending. In fact, this whole event has been great for our family, because it finally gave me the impetus to review our financial planning. I even got to talk to well-known financial expert Beth Kobliner, who gave me some great tips about investing for our children’s schooling and what to do with my dusty old 401(k) plan that I left behind when I got laid off by a big company in 2004.
Then came the interview. I think I did okay, although I was more concerned about my crazy eyebrows and whether or not they would go astray on camera than about what I was actually saying. I talked mostly about how I’m a typical mom, putting everyone in my family before me, (heard that one before?) specifically in terms of saving for the future. And I think I said it all without too many “um’s,” “likes,” or “you know’s.” I tried to pimp my blog, but it wasn’t really the topic of the story, and I realize now that I should have made a t-shirt with my URL on it, or at least written it on my forehead. Or maybe I could have braided my eyebrows so they spelled out my blog address…
I did have a hard time not producing the shoot, I must confess. After three years out of practice, it was like putting on my favorite old jacket. I kept asking about camera angles and lighting and sound issues. I repeated several of my answers until they came out just right. But being on camera and fussing about all of the details was exhausting. I don’t know how Mel Gibson does it. Eventually I just gave up and hoped that I would be in good hands in the edit bay. As a mother, I really hope they don’t use the shot in which I spilled an entire bucket of crayons on the kitchen floor. But as a producer, I know that’s exactly what they’re looking for.
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